FBR Lifts Price Target on Gap Inc (GPS), But Remains Sidelined

Shares of Gap Inc (NYSE:GPS) lost over 10% of their value today after the fashion giant warned investors that store traffic will continue to fall during the all-important holiday shopping season. Management is cautious on the fourth-quarter given a fall off in traffic throughout November and additional expenses related to occupancy for the new Times Square flagship, lapping bonus reversals LY, and additional marketing expense.

Subsequently, FBR analyst Susan Anderson reiterated a Market Perform rating on GPS, with a price target of $28, which represents a slight upside potential from current levels.

Anderson noted, “We like the better ON performance, which we believe can continue, but we remain on the sidelines until we see SSS improvement at Gap and sustained gross margin improvement or a more attractive entry point.”

“Reflecting management’s updated EPS guidance, we adjust our 4Q16 EPS estimate to $0.41 from $0.49, 2016 to $1.92 from $2.01, 2017 to $2.04 from $2.11, and 2018 to $2.12 from $2.20. We are also rolling forward our PT to 2018, and as a result, raising our PT from $22 to $28, which is 13x our 2018 EPS estimate,” the analyst added.

As usual, we like to include the analyst’s trackrecord when reporting on new analyst notes. According to TipRanks, which measures analysts’ and bloggers’ success rate based on how their calls perform, analyst Susan Anderson has a yearly average return of 3.5% and a 53.3% success rate. Anderson has a -11.4% average return when recommending GPS, and is ranked #993 out of 4229 analysts.

Out of the 28 analysts polled by TipRanks, 3 rate Gap Inc stock a Buy, 18 rate the stock a Hold and 7 recommend Sell. With a downside potential of 13.7%, the stock’s consensus target price stands at $24.